PAVE PAWS marks 30th anniversary

For 30 years, it has protected the East Coast of the United States from sea and land strikes by enemy missiles.

Comment

By GEORGE BRENNAN

capecodtimes.com

By GEORGE BRENNAN

Posted May. 16, 2010 at 2:00 AM

By GEORGE BRENNAN

Posted May. 16, 2010 at 2:00 AM

» RELATED CONTENT

Radar station history

Aug. 1973: Air Force directs two phased array radar systems be built - one on each U.S. coast.May 1975: Otis Air Force Base and Beale Air Force Base in California are announced as the sites.

» Read more

X

Radar station history

Aug. 1973: Air Force directs two phased array radar systems be built - one on each U.S. coast.

May 1975: Otis Air Force Base and Beale Air Force Base in California are announced as the sites.

April 1976: Raytheon awarded contract to build PAVE PAWS on Flat Rock Hill, the second highest point above sea level on Cape Cod and the northern most portion of the 22,000-acre Massachusetts Military Reservation.

Jan. 1979: A lawsuit seeking to prevent construction of the radar station is dismissed, but the Air Force is required to fund an Environmental Impact Study.

April 1980: PAVE PAWS begins operation.

April 1988: Firefighters from 21 towns battle a forest fire on the base that burns 1,600 acres and threatens the radar station.

Jan. 1990: An 11,000-gallon diesel-fuel leak occurs at the PAVE PAWS radar site from an underground fuel line.

Oct. 1994: Raytheon agrees to pay the Justice Department $4 million to settle a civil lawsuit involving work the company did for the Air Force. The suit involves improvements Raytheon made in the mid-to-late 1980s at PAVE PAWS.

Oct. 1998: A group called Cape Cod Citizens wants the facility closed over health concerns.

Feb. 1999: The state announces it will begin a new PAVE PAWS study. When the study concludes in Nov. 1999, experts contend there is insufficient evidence to determine whether radiation from the facility is harmful to public health.

Feb. 2000: Air Force announces it will fund a working group to address citizen health concerns.

Jan. 2001: Sen. Edward Kennedy calls for an independent study into health effects of PAVE PAWS. In Feb. 2001, Air Force agrees to fund the study.

Feb. 2001: Up to 40 civic leaders depart on a three-day trip with Air Force officials to Las Vegas and Colorado. Critics say trip takes focus off whether the radar station is a health threat.

Aug. 2002: The Air Force quietly signs a new lease through 2006 for the land on the Massachusetts Military Reservation where the radar station is located.

For 30 years, it has protected the East Coast of the United States from sea and land strikes by enemy missiles.

Yesterday, officials from the Air Force 6th Space Warning Squadron celebrated those three decades at PAVE PAWS — the first U.S. phased array warning system in the country and only one of four overall.

"I think certainly the legacy is keeping a watch, a presence looking out over the Atlantic Ocean," Lt. Col. Max Lantz, commander of the 6th Space Warning Squadron, said Friday. "It's been one of vigilant watch for the past 30 years."

Everyday, the 10-story radar station, which pokes out from the pitch pines and scrub oaks of Flat Rock Hill on the Massachusetts Military Reservation in Sagamore, uses 1,792 active antenna elements to detect ballistic missiles that could be launched from submarines or land. In recent years, as the unit's name indicates, the mission has grown from a Cold War missile watch to include tracking satellites and other objects in space.

"Everyday, 21,500 objects are tracked, preserving the safety of satellites and manned systems like the space shuttle and International Space Station," Lantz said.

At its farthest reaches — 3,000 nautical miles — the radar station can detect an object the size of an automobile, according to material provided by the 6th Space Warning Squadron.

While yesterday military officials celebrated the decision to tuck this radar station on the northern most 100 acres in Sagamore, the radar station's history has been steeped in controversy.

From the anti-radar station bumper stickers of the late 1970s to the activists who have pushed for health studies in the past decade, PAVE PAWS has been a lightening rod for criticism.

Sharon Judge, a former Sandwich activist who pressed for the facility to be moved because of her concerns about the safety of her young family, said she and her husband, Richard, a former Sandwich selectman, finally left the Cape in disgust over the radar station. "A lot of people move, you just don't read about it in the paper," she said.

Judge and others have called the health studies on PAVE PAWS "flawed" because they were controlled and paid for by the military. "When you boil it all down, my biggest concern was that millions of dollars had been spent, but we still don't have a study that has any evidence of safety," she said.

In 2007, the last of a series of studies commissioned by the state Department of Public Health concluded that radiation from the radar station is not responsible for the high incidence of Ewing's sarcoma and other cancers on the Cape.

State Rep. Matthew Patrick, D-Falmouth, who lobbied for the state studies, said he's satisfied with the results of testing on the radar station.

"You can't always get the answers to your questions completely," he said. "There's always a little bit of doubt, but they did a great job of reviewing the science and they spent a lot of money on it and even got the (National Academy of Sciences) involved. I'm satisfied with how it proceeded and the results of it."

PAVE PAWS was drawn into the contentious Nantucket Sound wind farm debate when concerns were raised about whether the 130 wind turbines proposed for the Cape Wind project would impact the radar's effectiveness. A 2007 report by the Department of Defense predicted no interference.

Most recently, the Air Force has worked with others agencies on the Upper Cape base — including the Massachusetts National Guard and environmental cleanup teams — in assessing the use of wind power on the base.

The 6th Space Warning Squadron has signed off on some of the proposed turbines and has even started preliminary talks for two of their own to help defray the unit's $5,000 per day electricity costs.

At yesterday's ceremony, Col. Stephen Whiting, commander of the 21st Space Wing out of Peterson Air Force Base, was the keynote speaker. Col. Nina Armagno, who was commander of the 6th Space Warning Squadron from 2003 to 2004, was also invited back for the event.

PAVE PAWS employs more than 100 people, a mix of military and civilians, Lantz said. About one third of the military employees live in base housing provided by the Coast Guard, he said. Other employees live in the surrounding communities.

While the radar station underwent a $19.5 million upgrade of some systems in 2007, Lantz said the unit is constantly looking at other upgrade needs because some of the radar station's equipment is original to its 1980 opening.

Any changes at PAVE PAWS will be initiated with as much public outreach and input as possible, he said.

"Our key emphasis is to be very transparent on the upgrade and to present to the public what will be changing with the site and re-look at it from an environmental standpoint," Lantz said. "We'll be as transparent and open as we can."